Secrets of the Moon: A Novel by Tema Encarnacion (Dominican Republic 2000–01) CreateSpace September 2018 186 pages $9.99 (paperback), $2.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Mark D. Walker (Guatemala 1971–73) • Author Tema Encarnacion couldn’t have chosen a timelier theme for her debut novel, than the circumstances that force families to flee violence from Central America and embark on a perilous journey across the border into the U.S., as the immigration crisis continues unresolved. Alternating narratives from the daughter, Luz, and her mother, Esperanza, help the reader appreciate how the experience will traumatize everyone in the family from Luz’s grandmother, who has been bringing Luz up in El Salvador alone for six years, to Luz’s crossing the border where she’s raped and mistreated upon her eventual arrival in Maryland. The rape scene of a 12-year-old while crossing the desert was especially heart wrenching, but well written, and the symbolism of the . . .

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Bob Arias (Colombia 1964-66) Review: “Birds of Passage,” the Tragic Story of an Indigenous Colombian Family’s Involvement in the Drug War By Richard Brody New Yorker February 11, 2019 The cultural richness of “Birds of Passage” is overwhelming, its sense of detail piercingly perceptive, and its sense of drama rigorously yet organically integrated with its documentary elements. Photograph Courtesy The Orchard The Colombian film “Birds of Passage,” directed by Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra, is an ethnographic thriller—a drama set in rural northern Colombia, centered on one indigenous group, the Wayuu, and based on the true story of a drug war that, from the late nineteen-sixties through the early nineteen-eighties, inflamed the region and engulfed a Wayuu family. It’s a movie involving a wide spectrum of experience, but its elements are nonetheless profoundly integrated. It’s not a thriller with some local color adorning the action or . . .